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Poly-PR expression invokes massive changes in cellular transcriptome and leads to upregulation of RQC genes at transcriptional level

ABSTRACT: Hexanucleotide expansion mutations in C9ORF72 are a cause of familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. We previously reported that long arginine-rich dipeptide repeats (DPR), mimicking abnormal proteins expressed from the hexanucleotide expansion, caused translation stalling when expressed in cell culture models. Whether this stalling provides a mechanism of pathogenicity remains to be determined. Here we explored the molecular features of the stalling and examined whether known regulatory mechanisms of ribosome quality control (RQC) are involved in efforts to sense and resolve the stalls. The most well-known RQC mechanisms come largely from studies of mRNA lacking stop codons, whereby ribosomes become stalled at the poly-adenylate sequence in the 3`UTR. Here we find that arginine-containing DPRs lead to stalling in a length dependent manner, with lengths longer than 40 repeats to invoke strong stalling. Mutational screening of 40×Gly-Xxx DPRs finds that stalling is most pronounced where Xxx are positively charged amino acids. Through a genome-wide CRISPR screen we find that genes that regulate poly-adenylate readthrough respond differently to the readthrough of arginine-rich DPRs. Indeed, we find evidence that DPR-mediated stalling has no natural regulatory responses even though the stalls may be sensed, as evidenced by an upregulation of RQC gene expression. These findings therefore implicate Arg-rich DPR-mediated stalled ribosomes as posing a particular danger to cellular health and viability. This dataset contains the RNA-sequencing data used to support the conclusions from this study.

ORGANISM(S): Homo sapiens

PROVIDER: GSE193962 | GEO | 2022/08/01

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a deleterious neurodegenerative disease without effective treatment options. Recent studies have indicated the involvement of the dysregulation of RNA metabolism in the pathogenesis of ALS. Among the various RNA regulatory machineries, nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) is a stress responsive cellular surveillance system that degrades selected mRNA substrates to prevent the translation of defective or harmful proteins. Whether this pathway is affected in neurodegenerative diseases is unclear. Here we report that the NMD pathway is inhibited in ALS patients with C9orf72 hexanucleotide repeat expansion (HRE), the most common cause of familial ALS. Bioinformatic analysis of multiple transcriptome profiles revealed significant overlap of upregulated genes in NMD-defective cells with those in the brain tissues, micro-dissected motor neurons, or induced pluripotent stem cell-derived motor neurons from ALS patients carrying C9orf72 HRE, suggesting the suppression of NMD pathway in these patients. In contrast, there are few overlapping upregulated genes in brain tissues from sporadic ALS patients with those in NMD-defective cells. Using Drosophila models expressing various C9orf72 HRE products, we have validated the suppression of the NMD pathway by C9orf72 HRE and identified arginine-rich dipeptide repeats (DPRs) generated from HRE as the main culprits of NMD inhibition. Furthermore, in human SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells and in mouse brains, expression of arginine-rich DPRs was sufficient to cause NMD inhibition. Remarkably, expression of UPF1, a core gene in the NMD pathway, efficiently blocked neurotoxicity caused by arginine-rich DPRs in both cellular and Drosophila models. Although not as effective as UPF1, expression of another NMD gene UPF2 also ameliorated the degenerative phenotypes in DPR-expressing flies, indicating neuroprotection by genetically reactivating the NMD pathway. Finally, after validating Tranilast as an NMD-activating drug, we demonstrated its therapeutic potential in cellular and Drosophila models of C9orf72 DPR neurotoxicity. Therefore, our study has revealed the suppression of NMD in C9orf72 ALS and has suggested that the restoration of the NMD pathway by Tranilast, an asthma drug with solid safety record, could be a promising therapeutic strategy for ALS.

Project description:G4C2 hexanucleotide repeat expansions in a non-coding region of the C9orf72 gene are the most common cause of familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). G4C2 insertion length is variable, and patients can carry up to several thousand repeats. Dipeptide repeat proteins (DPR) translated from G4C2 transcripts are thought to be a main driver of toxicity. Experiments in model organisms with relatively short DPR have shown that arginine-rich DPR are most toxic, while polyGlycine-Alanine (GA) DPRs cause only mild toxicity. However, GA is the most abundant DPR in patient brains, and experimental work in animals has generally relied on the use of low numbers of repeats, with DPRs often tagged for in vivo tracking. Whether repeat length, or tagging, affect the toxicity of GA has not been systematically assessed. Therefore, we generated Drosophila fly lines expressing GA100, GA200 or GA400 specifically in adult neurons. Consistent with previous studies, expression of GA100 and GA200 caused only mild toxicity. In contrast, neuronal expression of GA400 drastically reduced climbing ability and survival of the flies, indicating that long GA DPRs can be highly toxic in vivo. This toxicity could be abolished by tagging GA400. Proteomics analysis of fly brains showed a repeat-length-dependent modulation of the brain proteome, with GA400 causing earlier and stronger changes than shorter GA proteins. PolyGA expression up-regulated proteins involved in ER to Golgi trafficking, and down-regulated proteins involved in insulin signalling. Experimental down-regulation of Tango1, a highly conserved regulator of ER-to Golgi transport, partially rescued GA400 toxicity, suggesting that misregulation of this process contributes to polyGA toxicity. Experimentally increasing insulin signaling also rescued GA toxicity. In summary, our data show that long polyGA proteins can be highly toxic in vivo, and that they may therefore contribute to ALS/FTD pathogenesis in humans patients.

Project description:Translation elongation rates are regulated to ensure proper conformation and biological function of proteins. Translation of either non-stop mRNA or transcripts coding for poly-basic sequences induces ribosome stalling, and the arrest product is degraded by the ribosome-mediated quality control system (RQC). During this process, the stalled ribosome is dissociated into subunits, and the polypeptide is ubiquitinated by the E3 ubiquitin ligase Listerin on the 60S large ribosomal subunit (LSU) leading to subsequent proteasomal degradation. However, it is largely unknown how stalled ribosomes are recognized and dissociated into subunits. Here we report that ubiquitination of the ribosomal protein uS10 by the E3 ubiquitin ligase Hel2 is required for the production of the RQC substrate. RQC-trigger (RQT) factors, a RNA helicase-family protein Slh1/Rqt2, ubiquitin binding protein Cue3/Rqt3 and yKR023W/Rqt4, were also required for the primary steps of RQC, and associated with Hel2-ribosome complexes. Rqt2-4 factors were dispensable for the ubiquitination of uS10 by Hel2/Rqt1 and associated with ribosomes independent of the ubiquitination of uS10. However, the ubiquitin-binding activity of Rqt3 were crucial to trigger RQC. Cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) analysis revealed that Hel2 bound ribosomes are in an rotated state containing hybrid state AP- and PE-tRNAs. Furthermore, ribosome profiling revealed that short footprints, hallmarks of hybrid state ribosomes18, were accumulated at tandem CGA rare codons at the beginning of the poly arginine stalling sequence and long footprints at subsequent codons, respectively. Short footprints at CGA codons were decreased in rqt1 mutant but drastically increased in uS10 mutants defective in the ubiquitination or rqt2 mutant. Collectively, our results demonstrate that Hel2 stabilizes ratcheted ribosomes leading to ubiquitination of uS10. Subsequently, Rqt2-4 factors target these hybrid state ribosomes specifically, allowing subsequent RQC reactions.

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Poly-PR expression invokes massive changes in cellular transcriptome and leads to upregulation of RQC genes at transcriptional level

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